> ...but if you have a law and you’re opposed to it on the basis that “China will do it anyway”, you admit that’s stupid?
That depends on what "it" is. If it's slavery and the US but not China banning slavery causes there to be half as much slavery in the world as there would be otherwise, it would be stupid.
But if it's research and the same worldwide demand for the research results are there so you're only limiting where it can be done, which only causes twice as much to be done in China if it isn't being done in the US, you're not significantly reducing the scope of the problem. You're just making sure that any benefits of the research are in control of the country that can still do it.
> Now, certainly there is a degree of naunce with regard to AI specifically; but the assertion that we will be “left behind” and “out competed by China” are not relevant to the discussion on laws regarding AI and AI development.
Of course it is. You could very easily pass laws that de facto prohibit AI research in the US, or limit it to large bureaucracies that in turn become stagnant for lack of domestic competitive pressure.
This doesn't even have anything to do with the stated purpose of the law. You could pass a law requiring government code audits which cost a million dollars, and justify them based on any stated rationale -- you're auditing to prevent X bad thing, for any value of X. Meanwhile the major effect of the law is to exclude anybody who can't absorb a million dollar expense. Which is a bad thing even if X is a real problem, because that is not the only possible solution, and even if it was, it could still be that the cure is worse than the disease.
Regulators are easily and commonly captured, so regulations tend to be drafted in that way and to have that effect, regardless of their purported rationale. Some issues are so serious that you have no choice but to eat the inefficiency and try to minimize it -- you can't have companies dumping industrial waste in the river.
But when even the problem itself is a poorly defined matter of debatable severity and the proposed solutions are convoluted malarkey of indiscernible effectiveness, this is a sure sign that something shady is being evaluated.
A strong heuristic here is that if you're proposing a regulation that would restrict what kind of code an individual could publish under a free software license, you're the baddies.
> Of course it is. You could very easily pass laws that de facto prohibit AI research in the US, or limit it to large bureaucracies that in turn become stagnant for lack of domestic competitive pressure.
…
> A strong heuristic here is that if you're proposing a regulation that would restrict what kind of code an individual could publish under a free software license, you're the baddies.
Sure.
…but those things will change the way development / progress happens regardless of what China does.
“We have to do this because China will do it!” is a harmful trope.
You don’t have to do anything.
If you want to do something, then do it, if it makes sense.
…but I flat out reject the original contention that China is a blanket excuse for any fucking thing.
Take some darn responsibility for your own actions.
That depends on what "it" is. If it's slavery and the US but not China banning slavery causes there to be half as much slavery in the world as there would be otherwise, it would be stupid.
But if it's research and the same worldwide demand for the research results are there so you're only limiting where it can be done, which only causes twice as much to be done in China if it isn't being done in the US, you're not significantly reducing the scope of the problem. You're just making sure that any benefits of the research are in control of the country that can still do it.
> Now, certainly there is a degree of naunce with regard to AI specifically; but the assertion that we will be “left behind” and “out competed by China” are not relevant to the discussion on laws regarding AI and AI development.
Of course it is. You could very easily pass laws that de facto prohibit AI research in the US, or limit it to large bureaucracies that in turn become stagnant for lack of domestic competitive pressure.
This doesn't even have anything to do with the stated purpose of the law. You could pass a law requiring government code audits which cost a million dollars, and justify them based on any stated rationale -- you're auditing to prevent X bad thing, for any value of X. Meanwhile the major effect of the law is to exclude anybody who can't absorb a million dollar expense. Which is a bad thing even if X is a real problem, because that is not the only possible solution, and even if it was, it could still be that the cure is worse than the disease.
Regulators are easily and commonly captured, so regulations tend to be drafted in that way and to have that effect, regardless of their purported rationale. Some issues are so serious that you have no choice but to eat the inefficiency and try to minimize it -- you can't have companies dumping industrial waste in the river.
But when even the problem itself is a poorly defined matter of debatable severity and the proposed solutions are convoluted malarkey of indiscernible effectiveness, this is a sure sign that something shady is being evaluated.
A strong heuristic here is that if you're proposing a regulation that would restrict what kind of code an individual could publish under a free software license, you're the baddies.